Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Confusion lit a fire in Van’s brain. Caleb from when they were kids? “I’m not totally sure what you’re talking about, but if you’re going to be mad at me for something I did over twelve years ago, it should be what I did to you, not someone else.”
“You did do it to me!” Shane shouted, and then, “Can you honestly say you and Jonathan didn’t rat him out? That you didn’t decide to play around with someone else’s life?”
Van opened his mouth to reply but Shane started speaking again. “He was all I had,” he said with a hard edge to his voice. “He was all I had,” he added softly, more emotionally this time. “And you took him away to hurt me. To make you feel better about yourself.”
A sharp pain pierced Van’s chest. He felt like his heart had been ripped out. “Do you really think I’d do something like that? I know I fucked up a lot when I was a kid, but do you really think I would have outed someone without their permission?” Because the truth was, he hadn’t. He wouldn’t. He didn’t understand where all of this was coming from.
“You spray-painted fag on my house, Van.”
He winced. “I didn’t know you were really gay. It was just something we’d said…I hadn’t meant—”
“It doesn’t matter what you meant. It happened. I don’t know what I was thinking. We have too much hate tied to our past for us to ever be together.”
It was as though he was stabbed again, the knife twisted for good measure. “Are you going to let me explain?” he asked. Because if the situation was reversed, he never would have come at Shane accusing without getting all the details. He would have always trusted Shane first. But in Shane’s defense, Shane had never hurt him. Van had hurt Shane and maybe this was destined to happen. It had been too easy, the forgiveness and moving on. Shane was freaking out, yes, likely about more than Caleb, because they had so much damn history.
“I don’t think there’s much to explain. I thought I could do this and I can’t.”
“Fine.” The word ripped out of his throat, broken and painful. “I’ve never claimed to be perfect. I know I fucked up in the past, but don’t put this on me. You’re not doing this because of Caleb. You’re afraid and you’re running. That’s all this is. And for the record, I never hated you or Caleb. The only people I hated were myself and my father.”
He waited. Hoped Shane would ask for his side. Hoped this was some misunderstanding, because Shane had it all wrong, but the truth was, he thought Shane should know him better than that by now. He should take the time to hear Van’s side before jumping to conclusions.
But Shane didn’t reply. He didn’t ask. He hung up the phone.
“Fuck.” Van squeezed his cell in his hand, fighting himself so he didn’t throw it across the room. He’d done a lot of bad shit in his life and this is what came back to hurt him the most? Something he was still a little confused on?
Was Shane saying he and Caleb had been together? Just friends? It was all a big clusterfuck he couldn’t make sense of.
As much as he wanted to call Shane back, explain his side, do whatever the fuck he could to get the man he loved, Van didn’t. Because if it wasn’t this, it would be something else. Until Shane found a way not to be afraid to live his life, all it would take was one small thing to set about the destruction of their relationship.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Shane sat on the deck, waiting to go to his mom’s for dinner. He’d spent the last couple weeks working, sitting out here, or visiting with her. She’d had a pretty major panic attack a couple days earlier and he’d had to rush home from work. She spent all day in bed. Sometimes they wiped her out like that. They often came out of nowhere like this one, too. It was hard to make sense of sometimes, how your mind did that. How there wasn’t always a reason, but he’d learned over the years there wasn’t. It was just the reality of their lives.
He finished his beer and tossed the bottle in the recycle bin. Shane stalled, going inside and cleaning off the counters that didn’t need to be cleaned, because the truth was, he didn’t want to go over there.
What the fuck was wrong with him that he didn’t want to go have dinner with his own mom?
He was all she had.
And now she was all he had too.
Shane pushed away from the counter and went for the door. Standing here wouldn’t change anything. He’d still go even though he knew if he called her and told her he was tired, she’d understand.